The short answer
Short, interactive, built for the LMS
Training people finish is short, uses characters people recognise, and asks them to do something instead of just watching. A professionally produced animated module in Australia typically costs $3,000 to $12,000.
The problem with most training
Most e-learning is a PowerPoint with a voiceover. Slides advance, a narrator reads bullet points, and the learner clicks Next seventeen times, answers a quiz and forgets the lot.
It's not that people don't want to learn. The content is built to tick a compliance box, not to be understood. Animation and interactives fix that, because they show processes in motion, make abstract ideas concrete and ask the learner to actually take part.
Short. Character-led. Interactive. LMS-ready.
Quiz: how long should a training module be? 3 to 5 minutes, one idea per module.
When animation earns its place
Complex processes. If you're explaining how a system works, a safety protocol or an approval process, animation shows it happening step by step in a way a diagram never will.
Sensitive topics. On the child protection training I animated for Adelaide University, characters let educators learn the warning signs without the video feeling confronting.
Skills and conversations. For Edith Cowan University I animated a training series that models real conversations, so learners can see what good looks like before they try it.
Clinical conversation module, Edith Cowan University
Abstract ideas. Data privacy, consent, financial literacy. Things with no physical form get a visual metaphor people actually remember.
Frames from training animations.
Make it interactive
Watching is good. Doing is better. I build click-through scenarios, quizzes and activities around the animation, so learning feels a bit more like a game and a lot less like a slideshow. Everything is packaged to report completion back to your LMS.
Here are a few of the interactive bits from real modules.
Drag and drop. In Kelsian's customer service training, made with TOTLD, learners drag a better phrase onto each character to turn a negative line into a positive one.
Matching activity, Kelsian, with TOTLD
Click-through scenarios. For the City of Onkaparinga's Customer First course, made with Jelly Squares, learners follow a resident's real enquiry one step at a time.
Waste bot scenario, City of Onkaparinga, with Jelly Squares
Click to reveal. In the Department of Treasury and Finance's safety training, also with Jelly Squares, each tile opens up who's responsible for what, and Next stays locked until you've seen them all.
Roles activity, Department of Treasury and Finance, with Jelly Squares
What good e-learning looks like
Start with the learner's problem. Frame every module around a question the learner actually has, not the compliance requirement.
Use characters people recognise. A character who makes the same mistakes the learner might makes the point better than a narrator who's always right.
Keep it short. Three to five minutes, one idea per module.
Design for the LMS. It needs to work in a small player, with average audio, on a work laptop at lunch.
How to brief it
Bring the learning objectives (what people must know or do afterwards), who the learners are, how many modules and where they'll live, any existing content like slide decks or facilitator guides, the tone you want, and your LMS requirements such as SCORM, assessments or certificates.
What it costs
An animated e-learning module in Australia typically costs $3,000 to $12,000. A typical three to five minute module with script, voiceover and sound starts around $6,000 to $8,000, and series pricing brings the per-module cost down. Every quote is a fixed fee. There's a full breakdown in How much does animation cost in Australia?
Training I've made
Got training people keep skipping? Start a project.